Wildlife and Botanical Artists Inc (WABA) is organising this one-day workshop by a well-known Canberra botanical artist, Halina Steele. In this workshop, Halina will discuss how to bring your work to life with various painting techniques using watercolour and gouache. The class will explore creating tone, highlights, shadows and texture to give your painting a three-dimensional quality.

Halina is an award-winning artist with extensive experience in botanical art. She was awarded a Gold Medal and Best Botanical Art Exhibit by the Royal Horticultural Society in the UK in 2015.

When: Saturday 29 April 2017

Where: Jerrabomberra Wetlands Office, 2 Dairy Rd, Fyshwick

Cost: $120 for non-members and $110 for members

For details and bookings, please contact Nilavan Adams of Wildlife and Botanical Artists Inc on 62543989 or at nilavan@hotmail.com

Wildlife and Botanical Artists Inc (WABA) is organising this two-day workshop by Scientific illustrator and tutor, Chris Rockley. The workshops will cover plant anatomy on Saturday and animal anatomy on Sunday.

Plants – Working out what to draw – making sense of a scientific description; drawing from live, preserved and visual reference; how and when to use scale; creating the habit of the plant – adding in and taking away, drawing the elements using a microscope; reproductive parts dissection and drawing; bringing form back into a reconstructed drawing and creating detail in pencil; composition; creating artwork for publication.

Animals – Drawing from live, preserved and good quality visual reference; building up the layers starting with proportions; simplifying the skeleton; creating a new pose using pivot points and observation; adding muscle mass, tendons and skin; adding form and weight, adding the body surface ie fur, feathers, skin details and bringing your animal to life.

These are invaluable skills for artists wanting to go the next level in their natural history illustration journey and lack the scientific background.

Wildlife and Botanical Artists Inc (WABA) is organising this one-day workshop as an introduction to illustrating birds for identification. The workshop will look at understanding the structure of birds as a way of building up drawings and paintings; the use of references from field sketching to specimens and photos; and the process of rendering in pencil, watercolour and gouache.

Peter is an award-winning wildlife artist with extensive experience in illustrating birds

This workshop should help you to ‘see with a purpose’ and enhance your enjoyment of any observations of the natural world

When: Saturday 25 February 2017, 9.30am – 4.30pm

Where: Jerrabomberra Wetlands Office, 2 Dairy Rd, Fyshwick

Cost: $120 for non-members and $110 for members

For details and bookings, please contact Nilavan Adams of Wildlife and Botanical Artists Inc on 62543989 or at nilavan@hotmail.com

You are invited to a field trip to Australian National Wildlife Collection at the National Facilities and Collections, CSIRO, A.C.T.

The visit will take place at 10:30 am on Friday 14 October.

This is a Members only opportunity to see inside one of the largest wildlife collections in Australia. CSIRO Collections hold almost 200 000 wildlife specimens. This includes a range of skins, skeletons, specimens in spirit, bird egg collections, a wildlife sound library and frozen tissue.

The terrestial collection contains Reptlies, Amphibians, Birds, Mammals and Marsupials. An excellent opportunity to take as many reference photos, sketches, colour swatches as possible for your next exhibition or painting.

Director Leo Joseph will introduce us to the collections and the different facets and types of specimens available to us. We’ll have time after this to sit quietly and draw.

Members are invited to join a WABA field trip to a local daffodil farm near Yass.

This is an opportunity to see a large range of daffodil varieties (including jonquils) grown by local enthusiast Lawrence Trevanion.

Lawrence has been growing daffodils in Yass since 1997 and supplies cut flowers and bulbs at markets and via his webpage.

Artists may bring cameras, sketch books, field work art materials. Please also wear sturdy shoes as the grounds may be muddy. You may also wish to bring a light lunch or snacks and drinks for the trip.

There will be an opportunity to buy some daffodils on the day.

Event:Field Trip to Murrumbateman Daffodil Farm

Date/Time: Saturday 10 September 2016, 10.30am – 12.30pm

Address: 116 Dogtrap Road

Directions:

The turnoff to Dogtrap Road is opposite the entrance to Cooma Cottage. It is 5-10 minutes from Yass, about 40 minutes from Canberra. If you use navigation, use Marchmont rather than Yass.

Please note there are NO facilities on the property. It is just a paddock with trees daffodils and kangaroos, and some very large rarely seen brown snakes. It has an unfenced dam so if children come someone will need to keep an eye on them.

RSVP: Please contact Julia Landford by Thursday 8 September if you would like to come along:

Guest Presenter: Leanne Pope, local Wiradjuri artist and Cultural Arts teacher at the Yurauna Centre, Canberra Institute of Technology. Leanne will demonstrate and teach how to use your creative thinking in a sustainable manner to transform household products into a eucalyptus gum leaf and blossoms. She will also demonstrate how the colours of birds, in particular the eastern rosella, can assist your understanding of the colour wheel.

Please BYO water colour pencils and a selection of brushes (brushes are optional).

Leanne has recently published her first book, High Chair on the Hill. The works created for this publication and associated exhibition will be the basis for this presentation.

You are invited to attend a Colour Mixing and Matching Workshop presented by Prue Sailer.

In this one-day workshop, the tutor, Dr Prue Sailer, will guide the students to explore the fundamental principles of seeing colour. Students will then apply these principles to direct mixing and layering techniques, and to enable students to confidently match and mix colours more accurately.

Natural subject matter will be used in order to produce several studies in either watercolour or acrylic.

Leonie Norton gives a fascinating insight into the life of Marrianne Collinson Campbell, an extraordinary woman of her time. She was a talented botanical artist with a passion for flora and fauna and an amateur architect for Duntroon with a natural gift for landscape gardening. While living in Duntroon she was widely known and respected for her medical dispensary. Marrianne took watercolour painting lessons from her father who kept watercolour sketchbooks from his travels in the army. Her great aunt was a well respected artist in Sydney town who mentored Marrianne’s talents and Conrad Martens also gave her lessons. Robert Campbell was her great uncle and was Sydney’s first shipping agent and a landholder and pastoralist. Marrianne married his son George who inherited the Duntroon Estate where they moved in 1857. She set about transforming the original homestead into a Gothic Revival house. The landscaped gardens boasted a maze and a conservatory. Flowers and trees in Duntroon gardens were grown from seeds sent by her English great, great grandfather, botanist and plant importer Peter Collinson and from seeds and plants she also collected from her travels. These complimented the existing Australian native plants.

Leonie Norton is a practicing and exhibiting professional botanical artist, one of Australia’s most highly qualified botanical educators and a leading artist in her field. She is an international tutor of high regard and demand and is the author of Women of Flowers: Botanical Art in Australia from the 1830s – 1960s, the only published book on women’s Australian Botanical Art. Her paintings are in private and public collections, both in Australia and overseas, including the prestigious Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in the USA. She teaches regular courses and weekend workshops throughout Australia and in New Zealand, Fiji, Canada and the UK and has taught botanical art field techniques at Macquarie University. In addition, she is an International External Examiner for Botanical Art Certificate courses in the USA and has been involved in selection and judging for Australian botanical art exhibitions.

Leonie exhibits annually at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens, the Botanical Art Society of Australia exhibition and the Canberra Botanic exhibition. She is past President of the Botanical Art Society of Australia and remains an active member. She is a regular contributor to Australia Artist Magazine, Artists’ Palette and Back to Basics and Drawing & Inspiration publications.

To renew your membership please click on the link here and complete the online 2016/17 membership form. Alternatively you can go to WABA Web site here and follow link complete form.

When completing the form, please select either new membership or renewal membership option, and complete as much of the form as you wish, the only mandatory details are Name, Phone, Email, Membership Subscription and Subscription Payments.

If you are renewing your 2015/16 membership, please select 'Use current details' if your current details are still correct.

When you complete the WABA Membership 2016/17 form, your membership will commence July 2016 and end June 2017.